Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

I agree that "any" is out; but why "if", the fundamental (in some psychological 
sense, at least) logical connective?  If your aim is to get back to a sentence 
that is as puzzling as the original, why would you?  but any clear sentence is 
going to use either "if" and universal quantifiers or some dubious derivative of 
that.  I tend to be a little skeptical of the Nyayaika trick of getting rid of 
conditionals by moving to circumstances (I now see where they come from).  That 
makes sense for some kinds of conditionals, but there need be nothing special in 
this case.




----- Original Message ----
From: And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 16, 2011 8:11:11 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

Jorge Llambías, On 17/10/2011 01:31:
> On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:19 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>> The commonest case where covert donkey sentences occur is with conditionals:
>> "If you give me money, I'll spend it on drugs" = "Every possible
>> circumstance in which there is money that you give me is a circumstance in
>> which there is money that you give me and I spend on drugs". I don't think
>> your solution works for that. Applying your solution gives (I think) "Every
>> circumstance is such that in it I spend all money that you give me", which
>> has the wrong meaning. Crucially, the conditionals rely on restricted
>> quantification (over circumstances in which such and such is the case).
>
> Why does it have the wrong meaning? Is it still wrong if you use "any"
> instead of "all"?

In apprehending underlying forms, we need to get rid of "any", since it is an 
English reflection of a quantifier interacting with a conditional.

But let's change "money" to "five quid": "Every circumstance is such that in it 
I spend five quid that you give me". Wrong, obviously.  Or try "If you tell me 
your name, I'll murmur it".

>I think my solution would give: "For any money, if
> you give it to me, I'll spend it on drugs" or "I'll spend on drugs any
> money you give me".

Underlying "if" and conditionals is a logical form that is either repretitious, 
"Every possible circumstance in which there is money that you give me is a 
circumstance in which there is money that you give me and I spend on drugs", or 
else a donkey sentence, "Every possible circumstance in which there is money 
that you give me is a circumstance in which I spend it on drugs". So your 
challenge is to reformulate that, without using "if" or "any", but without the 
repetition (of "there is money that you give me").

>> So well done with the reformulation of the classic donkey sentence, but now
>> turn your ingenuity to "Every possible circumstance in which there is money
>> that you give me is a circumstance in which there is money that you give me
>> and I spend on drugs".
>
> I think the issue with donkey sentences is not so much reformulating
> them in terms of ordinary first order logic, which can be done by
> replacing the short scope existential by a wide scope universal. The
> problematic issue is explaining what's going on, since this conversion
> is not licensed by any rules of logic.

I see what you're saying, but I think we have different understandings of the 
quintessence of donkey-sentencehood. I take it to be when you have 
quantification within a restriction on a variable, in "for every X such that 
there is a Y such that F(X,Y), there is a Y such that F(X,Y) and G(X,Y)", which 
might be Englished as the less repetitious donkey-sentence "for every X such 
that there is a Y such that F(X,Y), G(X,Y)".

I see that as the quintessence of donkey-sentencehood not because that is how it 
is standardly seen in linguistics, but rather because that is the main problem 
they present for a logical language.

--And.

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